About Us

Before you finish this letter,

67 new people will take the World's Smallest Political Quiz online…

and many of them will discover they are libertarians!

…and that's just part of why 2011 has been such a good year for liberty

(and why 2012 will be even better)!

Dear friend of liberty,

As of October of this year, the World's Smallest Political Quiz has been taken more than 18 million times online. Moreover, the Quiz is now taken online more than 4,000 times a day!

At this rate, we’ll definitely hit the major milestone of 20,000,000 by the end of Election Year 2012!

As you know, the Quiz is a game changer. In the moments it takes to answer 10 questions and plot a person's political position, it totally demolishes the old left-right paradigm. It shows there is a better, more accurate map of the political world – one that makes room for libertarians!

I have even more good news to share with you in this end-of-year report, including the early successes of our exciting new outreach to college students – our Epic Liberty program. There, too, we are making libertarian history. Wait until you hear what's happening on campuses – straight from the mouths of fired-up student activists!

I hope this great news will excite YOU as much as it does me. You see, these and other successes are part of a long-term Advocates strategy designed to win millions of Americans to liberty and make libertarianism a vital part of American politics. And YOU make it all possible!

Our Winning Strategy for Liberty

The Advocates for Self-Government is unique in the liberty movement.

Founded in 1985, our mission is to discover large numbers of new potential libertarians and bring them into the liberty movement; and to empower all libertarians to successfully spread the ideas of liberty.

To accomplish this, we have created many highly effective programs that work TOGETHER in a three-step strategy designed to build an effective, successful grassroots mass movement for liberty:

STEP 1: We discover large numbers of libertarian-leaning individuals in proven, tested ways. We do this through our own efforts – the World’s Smallest Political Quiz online being a great example – and through the efforts of a growing outreach “army” of libertarians using Advocates tools and techniques.

STEP 2: We offer these new prospects the information they need to understand and embrace the ideas of liberty. We answer their questions and inform them about the liberty movement. We
turn many into full-fledged libertarians, eager to support the freedom movement and tell others about these exciting ideas.

STEP 3: We then provide these new libertarians – and long-time libertarians as well – with the training, tools, and encouragement they need to become effective advocates of the ideas of liberty. They become active in the libertarian movement – and, in turn, find new libertarian-leaning folks to bring to Step One. Then the whole process starts over again.

The numbers prove that this three-step strategy is successful. Advocates programs, tools and training introduce tens of thousands of people every month to the ideas of liberty – and bring thousands annually into the liberty movement who will make a huge difference now and in the years to come.

World's Smallest Political Quiz – a Smash Hit!

The key tool in our outreach efforts is our world-famous World's Smallest Political Quiz. As I noted above, the Quiz is being taken 4,000-plus times a day online. Depending on political events and media attention, we've seen days when that number shoots up to the tens of thousands.

This is incredibly important. For many people, taking the Quiz is just the start. Those who score Libertarian are given the opportunity to learn more about liberty and the liberty movement. To subscribe to our free email newsletter, the Liberator Online. To visit our Libertarianism.com website, a treasure trove of information about libertarianism. And more.

In short, the Quiz generates incredible numbers of recruits, educates them about liberty, plugs them into the liberty movement, and gives them a wonderful tool they can start using immediately to win their friends and associates to our great cause.

In the two decades since we created the Quiz, I strongly believe the Quiz has helped reshape American politics and played a major role in creating the mass movement for liberty we’re seeing today. (More on this in a moment.)

The Quiz isn’t just an online tool, of course. We also supply activists with pocket-sized card versions of the Quiz – an outreach kit on a card. We’ve distributed almost 10 million of these so far!

And the Quiz is the core of our acclaimed OPH (Operation Politically Homeless) outreach kit, and the new Epic program for college activists. More on this in a moment, but first let me tell you how we're using the Quiz to take libertarian ideas to thousands of young people – in America's classrooms!

Libertarian Ideas in the Classroom

Since the earliest days of the Advocates, we’ve worked hard to build academic credibility for our World’s Smallest Political Quiz and the Nolan Chart map of politics the Quiz promotes.

I remember how Advocates Founder Marshall Fritz was constantly testing and improving the Quiz, insisting it be fair, reliable and accurate. Only in this way, Marshall insisted, could the Nolan Chart model of politics replace the old-fashioned, terribly inaccurate left-vs.-right model taught for generations in high school and college – a model that excludes libertarians!

I'm pleased to say that we now know Marshall was right! Thousands of college and high school students have studied the Quiz – in their classrooms.

The Quiz has been featured in many best-selling college and high school textbooks or their supplementary material – including more than a dozen key textbooks by the biggest names in publishing, such as McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, and Houghton Mifflin.

Further, we’ve supplied educators, at their request, with 30,000-plus card Quizzes for their classrooms. Educators repeatedly tell me the Quiz opens minds and sparks wonderful classroom discussions.

For years, libertarians dreamed of getting libertarianism recognized and discussed in the classroom. Now future generations of high school and college students will graduate knowing what libertarianism is. And many of them will have discovered that they are libertarians. They’ll come out of school ready and eager to support the cause of liberty!

Millions Encounter the Quiz on National TV, in Books, Newspapers, Magazines

The mind-opening magic of the Quiz reaches millions of people through newspapers, magazines, books, textbooks, blogs, and more. I've mentioned our online Quiz, taken 4,000 times every day. But also...

• The Quiz has been on national television and radio.Libertarian TV personality Judge Napolitano has praised the Quiz on air. Nearly three million FOX TV viewers were introduced to the Nolan Chart (the chart on the Quiz) last year when Glenn Beck devoted an entire show to the subject (our website was swamped as people searched for more information). Other leading radio and TV news figures who have featured the Quiz on their shows or at their websites include Chris Matthews, Neal Boortz, and Alan Colmes.
   
• The Quiz – and/or the Nolan Chart on which it's based – has been featured in major newspapers and magazines. From Reason magazine – which last year put the Nolan Chart on its cover – to other heavy hitters like the Washington Post, USA Today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Miami Herald, the London Sunday Times, Campaigns and Elections, and innumerable others. Total audiences we’ve reached via such publications are in the millions.
   
• The Quiz appears in acclaimed political books. Some recent examples: The widely praised No Right Turn by scholar David T. Courtwright, a history of the modern political era published by Harvard University Press, gave the Quiz a whole page – more proof academics take our political map seriously. Libertarianism Today by Jacob H. Huebert, hailed as “the best work of its kind since Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty,” also features the Quiz chart. The Quiz has appeared in many other scholarly and popular books through the years.
  
  Add to this the millions of Quizzes handed out by libertarian activists and you can see that our efforts to promote the Quiz, are paying off – with big dividends for the liberty movement.
  
   

Taking the Quiz to America’s Most Influential People

To make the libertarian movement grow faster, it is crucial we reach and persuade the most influential Americans to support our cause. That’s why we send the Quiz several times a year, via carefully targeted advertising, to about 50,000 of the most powerful and influential people in America – the “power demographic” who dominate American politics, journalism, and education.

These opinion shapers include 8,500 state and national elected officials – including every U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative, governor, and state legislator; thousands of municipal officials; political staffers; school principals, school board members, teachers, and students; and over a thousand influential journalists.

Total: about 50,000 of the most influential people in America!

Wouldn’t you like to put the Quiz in the hands of these people? Several times a year – thanks to YOUR support – we do exactly that!

The “Liberty Payoff” for All This Quiz Activity

The result of all this Quiz activity?

Millions of people hear about the Quiz. Millions take it and learn about libertarianism. And many discover they are libertarians or strongly sympathetic to many libertarian positions.

Today we’re witnessing the emergence of a new, fast-growing freedom movement, a diverse coalition of libertarians, constitutionalists, small-government conservatives, anti-war activists, and more. And it's happening at a time when (as I stated in my previous letter) the wheels are coming off the statist wagon.

A mass movement for liberty was just a dream only a few years ago. Now we’re seeing it come to life – on campuses, in the streets, and at the ballot box!

Many groups have played significant roles in bringing this coalition to life. But there’s no doubt that many of these new libertarian activists early on encountered the Quiz and other Advocates’ materials when they were first exploring political ideas.

As Congressman Ron Paul said in the Congressional Record:

"The World's Smallest Political Quiz is one of the freedom movement's most recognized and effective outreach tools. … The World's Smallest Political Quiz is responsible for many Americans' first contact with libertarian ideas. While traveling around the country, I have often heard people say, 'I never knew I was a libertarian until I took the Quiz!’”

The success of the Quiz is no accident. Thanks to generous Advocates supporters like YOU, we are able to work hard to refine it and take it to the entire world!

Operation Politically Homeless

Operation Politically Homeless is our outreach-event-in-a-kit – a fantastic tool for reaching people on college campuses, at street fairs and state fairs… any place where people are gathered.

OPH uses the World's Smallest Political Quiz and other intriguing features to transform an ordinary outreach booth into an exciting, crowd-drawing happening. It makes it easy for just a couple of activists to discover lots of new libertarians and libertarian-leaners wherever people are gathered.

OPH also happens to be so much fun, for boothers and participants alike, that even shy libertarians report it makes outreach completely pain-free!

OPH works by attracting passers-by to an eye-catching display featuring the political map from our Quiz. They take the Quiz and find their “home” on a large, colorful Diamond Chart. People are fascinated to discover there's such an amazingly accurate way to measure their political leanings!

Operation Politically Homeless Goes to College

College and university campuses are, beyond a doubt, the hottest spots for finding and creating new libertarians, and campus outreach has long been a major priority for the Advocates.

The potential impact of student libertarian groups on campuses is enormous. Unfortunately these groups face huge challenges – in funding, in promotion, in ongoing motivation.

We know that an Operation Politically Homeless kit is the best tool a student group can use to grow the pool of like-minded individuals on campus and to grow membership. And so, starting in 2010, we began supplying OPH kits to libertarian student groups – at no charge to them.

Our campus outreach program was a wild success. Since launching, we've sent OPH kits to 401 campus libertarian groups in 46 states and DC.

However, we knew that more needed to be done. We brainstormed. We bounced ideas around. We listened to outstanding student activists. And this year we launched…

Epic Liberty

As the newest phase of our campus outreach, Epic Liberty pumps our college activism effort to the max. You might say that in 2011 we turned the volume all the way to 11!

Along with the OPH kits, we added competition, prize incentives and more – including powerful encouragements to activists to share their own creative ideas for reaching more students for liberty.

In a nutshell, Epic Liberty:

• Clears away the hurdles that may be keeping many campus activists from joining the ranks of “OPHers” (people who use Operation Politically Homeless for outreach).
   
• Harnesses youthful energy and willingness to think outside the box for spreading the liberty message – in a way that has never been attempted before.
   
• Calls on college students' competitive spirit, as they challenge one another to ever-greater achievements in libertarian recruitment.

So far, activists on 41 campuses are enthusiastically participating in Epic Liberty, bringing the ideas of liberty to their fellow students – and dramatically multiplying the number of identified libertarians!

With the great reports of success we're receiving, I expect the number of Epic Liberty activists and campuses to mushroom in the coming months – especially as we enter a major election year.

Do you agree with me that the health of liberty lies with young people? Can you see that the Advocates campus outreach programs are possibly the best means yet to persuade large numbers of today's youth to embrace liberty – now and into the future?

Read what libertarian student activists from around the country are saying:

”Starting out for the first time as a registered club on our campus at the club fair in August, we found 55 people who scored libertarian on the World’s Smallest Political Quiz who opted to sign up for our email list. Then, with the help of our new activists, we found 100 more people in the month of September, 80 on a Wednesday and 20 on a Thursday, who scored libertarian and signed up.This was a huge success, especially considering the small size of our campus and its commuter nature!” – Jason Walker – University of Colorado-Colorado Springs

“The super-size Operation Politically Homeless Quiz was a big visual draw and lots of people walked over to see what was on the big board. We had six different members working the table throughout the day. We garnered 50-plus sign-ups that day!” – Eric Sharp – Middle Tennessee University

“We used different tabling events to attract new membership, including Operation Politically Homeless. It was a huge success! ”Not only did we sign up over 220 people to our email list, but we also started out the school year with record breaking attendance numbers at our meetings. Last week we reached 42 attendees! …We can't wait to see how much we can accomplish this year!” – Adam Fletcher – Texas State University

“I can honestly say implementing OPH is one of the best methods of recruitment for those of us involved in spreading the message of more personal responsibility and less government. Words cannot describe the feeling I had as I witnessed the growth of the liberty movement firsthand.” – David Torres – University of Houston-Clear Lake

“Battling for the attention of passing students against the other organizations, with their bare unattractive tables and unwelcoming seated representatives, was an easy task for [our] new organization [with OPH]. Three days of intense recruiting resulted in almost 50 sign-ups and over 100 flyer handouts! Students who took the Quiz were surprised to discover that they were for limited government and personal freedom. Fighting political apathy never felt so rewarding!” – Brandon Cestrone – Slippery Rock University

I could fill an entire letter with similar reports from students who are thrilled with the excitement of discovering a way to do libertarian outreach that is easy, stress-free – and effective. But I hope these are enough to convince you that our Campus Outreach and Epic Liberty programs truly are at the cutting edge of libertarian persuasion – and deserving of your support.

But there's even more to what we do…

Communication Training: Building an Army of Effective Libertarian Activists

Not only does the world need more libertarians, we need libertarians who are effective and persuasive ambassadors for liberty.

Teaching the very best ways to communicate the ideas of liberty is an Advocates specialty. We share communication know-how in our email newsletter The Liberator Online (with more than 38,000 subscribers), at our Facebook site (13,354 fans as I write this), at our Communicating Liberty blog, and elsewhere.

We've distributed over 8,000 sets of our acclaimed audio course, “The Essence of Political Persuasion” by Michael Cloud. We’ve published and distributed thousands of copies of unique, activist-oriented books such as Libertarianism in One Lesson by David Bergland; Michael Cloud's Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion; and Harry Browne's guide to using libertarian soundbites, Liberty A-Z.

Advocates seminars and workshops on political communication are another specialty. In the past few months, Advocates representatives gave highly praised presentations on effective libertarian communication in Philadelphia, Chicago, New York City, Gainesville, Florida, Winston-Salem, and Berkeley, California.

The goal of our extensive communication training programs: seeing that every libertarian has the opportunity to learn to successfully spread the ideas of liberty – in the most effective ways possible.

Our Day Is Dawning!

Millions of Americans are now ready to hear and embrace the ideas of liberty. This is the time you and I have been working so hard for!

We have what those millions of people need. We must reach them.

But the Advocates can't do it without you. Your support makes our work possible. Your donation helps us build the growing, energized libertarian movement that America needs so urgently.

Your donation helps us ensure that millions of people will encounter libertarian ideas in attractive, honest, persuasive ways – because of the unique, proven programs YOU make possible!

Our “Thank-You” Gifts for You

The greatest gift we can give you is the satisfaction of knowing YOU are personally playing a vital role in this wonderful work.

The other gifts we can offer you are still very nice, though. Please check the enclosed flier to see the special thank-you gifts we've reserved for you.

Remember that every contribution of any size will bring you a free subscription to The Advocates Insider, a publication just for our friends and supporters. The Insider will keep you up-to-date on the latest progress in our plans for the coming year.

However much you give, I promise we will put every dollar to work for the cause of liberty. YOU will enable us to reach millions with these great and much-needed ideas, at a critical time in history.

For liberty,

Sharon Harris
President

P.S. We depend entirely on the generous support of dedicated libertarians like you to make our work possible. Please make the best tax-deductible donation you can make today. And don’t forget to claim your special thank-you gifts.

P.P.S. Our annual end-of-year letter brings in a big portion of our annual budget. Just as last year, the poor economy is weighing on many of our loyal contributors. Will you please dig a little deeper if you possibly can, to help make up for those who cannot this year? I would be deeply grateful.

P.P.P.S. Imagine the impact of thousands of new libertarians, on campuses and off, working across America to spread the ideas of liberty – in the 2012 Election Year! Together, you and I can make this happen. Can I count on your support?